I first arrived in Japan, and headed to Kyoto with Justin as my guide. We started out our first full day with sightseeing at the Nijo castle. Everything was going along normally. We viewed the castle among throngs of school children and then headed out to see the surrounding gardens. Then we were approached by a group of school children asking 'Shall we take a photo with you?' Which, we did, and then they asked for our signatures.
Then we went on to see the Golden Pavilion. Again it was crowded with school children. Everything was going along normally, when two girls approached me with some kind of assignment they had to ask some one some questions in english and get a signature. So I answered their questions, and then the rest of their classmates realized that some native english speakers had been found and came over to get our signatures as well. We were signing papers left and right! Since the Japanese don't have signatures, apparently having one is really cool. Eventually we were able to get away from the group, after taking the obligatory group photo. Our sightseeing continued on to the Silver Pavilion. They Silver Pavilion was less crowded, so we had a little breathing room. We wandered around the gardens, and down a path to a little shrine. It was a dead end, so we turned to make our way to the main path but our way was blocked by a group of school children holding a camera. 'Shall we take a photo with you?' 'Sure!'. This was the last with our brush with Japanese fame, but we got a photo of our own this time!
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